you've a skeleton mouth.
static crumbles in your throat —
please enunciate.
i am no translator of this archaic language
of sidestepping the truth,
i am merely a pair of lips and a heart
constructed for you to do with what you will.

here's the thing: i like you.
i like you how a flower girl might like
tossing petals to the air and watching them
flutter down:
with a foreign innocence
that instills in me a voracious appetite
for your sacred space to invade my own.

i liked you in october chill,
when rosebuds were your cheeks,
and with gentle panic
i think i am falling for you
crept into my unspoken lexicon.
novocaine verbatim numbed words
that would otherwise violently swell
to the tip of a stained tongue,
and i liked you in a little black dress,
just as all the stories said i would.

i liked you in moments
when nothing could logically tether me to you,
and i think it stays prevalent in the curve
of the husky laugh i can so easily drown in.
i like your laugh,
but what i like most is
that it comes from your mouth.